Tag Archives: Birmingham Town Hall

Conductor: Frederick Brown  Reviewer: Tim Harding Only four weeks left until the summer holiday starts.  And it turns out that it’s not just school children (and teachers!) who are getting ready for the break; orchestral musicians, it turns out, are already packing up ready for some summer sun.   Fortunately for us, before they fly off the members of the Welsh ...

Reviewer: Tim Harding “Astronaut wanted, no experience necessary”.  This was the strapline from a commercial that 26-year-old Dr Helen Sharman heard in 1989.  Sharman was, at the time, working as a chemist for the confectioners Mars, working on a team developing a Mars Bar flavoured ice cream!  She says she had no big dreams of going into space as a ...

Reviewer:  Dave Smith Qawwali is a form of Sufi devotional singing (Sufism itself represents mysticism within Islam) popular in parts of Northern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh that was mainly popularised among Western audiences by the great Nusret Fateh Ali Khan, who, as well as performing at Womad, also recorded for Peter Gabriel's Real World record label. Qawwali singing is generally ...

Writers: Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks (original book) Director: Graham Hubbard Reviewer:  John Kennedy Shake off those tinsel and turkey cobwebs with fifty-five minutes of farmyard festive fun and frolics with this delightful stage adaptation of the award-winning eponymous picture book by Julia Donaldson &Lydia Monks. Participation is optional - hilarity jolly well near compulsory. Kenny Wax Family Entertainment in association with Matthew ...

Reviewer: James Garrington Christmas music over the last couple of decades seems to be dominated by either Slade and Wizzard, or Mariah Carey and The Pogues. If you want something a bit different, though, you could try Christmas with Clare Teal for an evening of jazzy big band music with a Christmas flavour. Joining Teal is Gary Williams, a well-known ...

Reviewer: Selwyn Knight Currently touring the UK, The All-Star Stand-Up Tour features four well-known comedians. Jarred Christmas acts as the evening’s host, warming the audience up for sets from Gary Delaney, Pete Firman and Sean Hughes. Together, they bring a wealth of experience and talent to the stage of Birmingham’s Town Hall, but can they also raise the roof with ...

Music: Mike Oldfield Reviewer: Selwyn Knight Tubular Bells is an iconic piece of music and justly famous for many reasons. Incredibly, when it was released in 1973 (the first release on the fledgling Virgin record label), Oldfield was just 19, having written, played and recorded almost every instrument – all of which were listed in the album notes, using the ...

Reviewer: Selwyn Knight Barbara Dickson gazes out serenely from the cover of this evening’s programme. Looking at this image and the slight figure on stage at Birmingham Town Hall and listening to the clarity of her voice, it’s difficult to believe that she has been a stalwart of the Scottish and British folk scenes since the mid-1960s appearing on vinyl ...